Sên Toon stood at the house door, waiting to lift his bride from
her flowery-chair and carry her across the flaming threshold. Her
cavalcade drew near. They were carrying her through the great outer
gate-of-ceremony. Already the bride-test fire was lit at the house
door, a low harmless “fire” of perfumed tinsels.
Sên Toon was splendid in a bridegroom’s gorgeous trappings.
The boy’s face was ashen--and looked the more ghastly for the gay
raiment he wore.
Close behind him stood gathered the Sêns--even the women--ready
to acclaim the bride, to whom no one yet must speak, and to greet
her kinsmen who had accompanied her so far to give her to stranger
hands--yield her forever to a strange undiscovered home, seal her in a
new life that might prove garden, prison or tomb, to tell her good-by,
and see her no more.
Sên Toon was not embarrassed; social embarrassment is not a Chinese
trait; and his misery and distaste were far past mere embarrassment.
His kindred gathered about him there at the Ting Tzŭ Lang paid him
little heed; they were too engrossed in watching for the girl hidden
in the slow approaching bride-chair. In China--and where is she
not?--the bride on her wedding day is of far more importance than the
bridegroom. It is _her_ day; and she predominates it, if all the rest
of her life she has nothing to do but be meekly unimportant and obey.
Besides, the Sêns had seen Sên Toon most of the days of his life; they
had no curiosity about Sên Toon; they had a great deal concerning
his bride; especially the Sên women had. He might neglect her, avoid
her most of the time, if he chose. But all the _kuei_ would be open
to her, be hers. She might spend most of her time with them in their
general courtyard. Would she add to its pleasantness or detract? An
ill-natured concubine could contrive much discomfort for an entire
household, a sour-souled wife could almost disrupt it and make their
common courtyard purgatory come to earth instead of a sun-drenched
garden of mirth, siesta and song. Truly this coming girl was almost of
more importance to them than to Sên Toon, and they knew it. She would
have no mother-in-law to fear, for Sên Toon’s mother never had rebuked
or crossed any one in her life and never would; she often went into
the meadow damp rather than disturb a snail on the path or a lizard
sleeping in the sun; and an _amah_ could have ruled her--certainly
her daughter-in-law would, if his wife pleased Sên Toon. True Sên Wed
O was regnant in the _kuei_; but Sên Wed O was fat and indolent with
years and sweetmeats; was always more apt to raise her eyebrows with
an inscrutable glance than to raise her stick; and it was useless to
predict which side Madame Sên would champion and triumph in any quarrel
or disagreement. She was not fond of complaints; she had no stomach for
advice. Always her judgments were her own. And this new-come-one had
imperial blood and was greatly endowed, and her kindred were powerful.
Small wonder that the Sên ladies craned their necks as far over the
shoulders of their men as they could when the bride-bearers set the
bride-chair down.
Sên Ruben did not dwell in this or in any other _kuei_. He had little
interest in the girl who had come to be made a Sên, no interest that
was not vicarious and indirect. His eyes and his thought were for Sên
Toon. Would Sên Toon go through with it? _Could_ he? It was jolly hard
lines on his cousin Toon, Ruben Sên thought. His sympathy was with Sên
Toon.
Ruben Sên had come to China to learn and to admire. And Sên Ruben had
done both. But once or twice the English blood in his blue Chinese
veins had revolted at some custom intensely Chinese. Perhaps Ivy Ruby
Gilbert’s son was a little less Chinese than he believed himself, a
little less Chinese than he earnestly wished to be. But had he never
seen the face of a Chinese girl on a canvas at Burlington House,
probably he would have condemned Sên Toon’s reluctance and rancor
to-day; for his soul was Chinese and he had seen in this home of his
kinsmen the preponderant happiness of Chinese marriage. But he had seen
a girl in a picture, and--what if he were in Sên Toon’s place to-day?
His gorge rose at the thought, and an Englishman’s ire rose--and vowed.
The initial moment of Sên Toon’s ordeal had struck. The bride’s chair
rested on the ground at the housedoor, the bearers turned and left it,
with their sturdy backs toward it and went through the great gate,
rubbing their arms as they walked. What would Sên Toon do?
He behaved like a man and a Sên. Instantly he went to the chair and
thrust the clustering bridesmaids aside. He was a grave, dignified
figure, in spite of his fantastic bridal brocades and foppery, his
bead-dangled, bejeweled, charm-hung love-pouch belching perfume and
jangling coins as he moved, wearing right lordly the proud, peacocked
mandarin’s hat which even a peasant may ape at his bridal.
Except a Burmese pagoda, newly built, untarnished and richly endowed,
there is little in Asia more glittering, more intricately and lavishly
ornamented than a Chinese Bride-chair of the first class. This chair
was sumptuous--if Sên Toon had sent it reluctantly, he had sent it of
great price. The bamboo carrying poles were lacquered with gold. The
carrying poles were the least of it. The box (for a bride’s chair is
just that, a more or less richly bedizened box) was lacquered with
gold-leaf and silver; it was carved and interlaced. Its two roofs
rose to an apex of a great ball of topaz; the precious ball wore a
jeweled crown. The up-sloping roofs were encrusted with marvelously
wrought dragons and with kingfisher feathers. Unlike other Chinese
roofs these did not tilt up at their edges. At each corner of both
roofs an exquisite “lion” carved and molded of pure gold stood upright
and watchful, with out-thrust tongues of coral. The eyes were jewels;
the claws were ivory and silver. From the edge of the lower roof hung
a deep fringe of alternate garnets, moonstones, turquoise, beryls,
jasper and topaz. The box was a riot of arabesques and of crimson
silk-lined open-work. At the back a shutter was opened slightly at the
lower end, or the girl must have suffocated. In front a taut curtain
of embroidered cloth of silver was closely fastened. There was a great
deal of red about the chair. It was indescribable. The perfumes it
smelt of must have cost a fortune. In her progress to the marriage-rite
the Sêns had done their new woman and chattel royally well.
The bridesmaids, a dozen or more tiny maidens, too young to be profaned
or lose face from the eyes of men or from gazing at men, as soon as
their low litters had been lowered to the ground scrambled out before
their _amahs_ could help them, and scampered off on their wee crippled
feet to prevent the bridegroom from taking his bride. The maid of
honor must have been ten years of age, the youngest looked two. They
were dressed all alike in long, silver-edged blue satin tunics and
crêpe orange trousers. Their wide sashes were bridal crimson. They wore
no veils over their delicately painted baby faces, but they wore high,
heavy-looking “maid crowns” of gold, pink and amber artificial roses.
Their specks of feet, shod in jeweled brocades, sparkled and glittered.
One hopes, more firmly than one believes, that soon the binding of feet
may be reformed out of China; but how old eyes will miss them: the
little golden lilies that for centuries have scampered over the gardens
of China, over the hearts of Chinese men!
The bride’s father descended from his betasseled palfrey’s high saddle,
her brothers from theirs, they with comparative agility, he with
difficulty and assisted by his servants. Her kinsmen would follow her
into the great _ch’ih_, watch all the ceremonies, bid her good-by in a
few days; but neither in _ch’ih_, _hsi hua t’ing_ nor temple, before
the ancestral tablets of the Sêns nor at the marriage feast would one
of them glance at the Sên ladies. But many a peep would the Sên women
take at them, and the Sên men, seeing their women’s misbehavior, would
smile. It did not happen often; there was seldom opportunity.
Fire-crackers still crackled and snapped. Brass instruments still
bellowed and screeched; the sweet song of the bamboo flutes was drowned
in uglier sounds; but the music of the silver flutes pierced through it
all.
Behind chairs, litters and palfreys hundreds of bearers waited to lay
down such of the bride’s gifts and furnishings as had not been sent
several days before her. These bearers, all lifelong servants of her
father’s clan, the clan of Sia, were clad like lords, though in fabrics
flimsier and cheaper than real lord-ones wear; but they looked the
peasants they were. Nowhere on earth can race be disguised or aped,
and least of all in China. A list of what they carried would fill a
thick catalogue. Two of the bride-belongings were of super-importance,
though compared with much they were of minor cost. The wild geese in
their great strong, wire-covered cage Sên Toon had sent to her in
betrothal and in presage and promise of lifelong married felicity.
The wild geese of China never remate, and once mated never quarrel or
forsake. On a great crimson tray four satin-clad coolies carried, in
candlesticks of gold and tortoise shell, a pair of gigantic betasseled
red-candles, virgin and unlit. They would stand by her bed or in the
family temple as she chose, but not even the head of the house of Sên
might order them lit until the birth hour of Sên Sia Fûtsin’s first
son; and then not even the head of the house of Sên could forbid her
midwife to light them. They, too, Sên Toon had given in betrothal,
talismans of motherhood.
Behind the red-clad candle-bearers came two others, carrying another
immense red tray on which potted in carved silver stood a dwarf orange
tree rich with its own golden fruit and fantastically festooned with
gold coins, an emblem of continued wealth. Red-clad musicians followed
the “flowery” chair and were interspersed and noisy in all the long
procession’s length. Behind the bride, before her, and again and again
were bride-banner bearers. The bride-banners were indescribable; some
were shaped like great wide-winged beetles riding above embroidered and
flower-edged squares of silk; some were shaped even more fantastically,
resembling great-eyed crustaceans with ridged outspread wings that were
jauntily tipped by embossed plaques of gold-crustaceans that rode on
stiffer, more irregularly shaped under-devices of silk. The men who
held them were imperially and theatrically garbed. The banners’ tall
twisted poles were of lacquer, gold or red. On the two most important,
the nuptial banners, were beautifully inscribed the names of the
fathers of the nuptial pair who still were those fathers’ chattels.
As Sên Toon went towards his bride Sên Ruben saw the flash of the
splendid jewels in the hilt of the dagger that Toon wore sheathed in
his high red-leather boot.
The bridesmaids dashed on the bridegroom, beat at him with tiny fat
rose-leaf yellow baby hands. They were so young that, in defense of
their mistress, his bride, they might touch him, beat against his
well-clad shoulder, if they could reach it. One of them almost did; two
clawed at his sleeve; two pulled at his knees; the others beat and tore
at his boots; one dimpled, painted mite tripped up over his foot, found
it a good resting place, and lay there face up gurgling and laughing at
him affectionately as she scolded and cursed him, calling him a thief,
a beast and a coolie.
Sên Toon beat them off tenderly, tossing a handful of sweetmeats a few
feet away, to divert and entice them. But they had been well chosen and
well drilled; they clung to him but the closer--beat at him and tore at
his garments the harder, thrashing him hard with their rosebud hands.
Again and again he drove them away; again and again they came back,
clung closer, assaulted him harder and buzzed about him like angry,
playful, jubilant bees.
Sên Toon routed the pretty infant Amazons at last, or perhaps the
chief _amah_ had whispered them to desist. They stood a little apart,
breathless but giggling softly, and the tiniest tot of them all sat
where she had fallen, sucking her thumb and devouring Lord Sên Toon
with wistful, worshiping eyes. The youngest bridesmaid had fallen
deeply in love with the bridegroom.
Sên Toon ripped the tinseled crimson curtain away, ripped it aslit and
off, bent over the red-veiled motionless figure in the bride-come-box,
lifted her up, sprang with her in his arms over the perfumed fire that
smoked and flamed on the doorstep, stamped at it contemptuously with
a red bridal boot, and carried the bride in his arms through the _ting
tzŭ lang_ and lesser _langs_, through the _t’ings ch’ih_, roofed and
decorated for the bridal ceremony.
Sên Ruben pressed close beside him, and Sên Ruben’s heart was heavy.
Little could he see of the crimson bundle in his cousin’s arms, but he
thought that the girl swathed and bundled in bridal crimson was dumpy
and heavy. One of her bejeweled hands slipped out from the folds of her
veil; not at all a pretty hand. And next to her binded feet a lovely
hand is the most indispensable attribute of a Chinese lady’s beauty.
The matchmaker had swindled Sên Toon, and the heart of Sên Ruben was
wroth.
Through the covered passageways and reception halls, her kinsmen and
his kindred close behind them, Sên Toon carried her, but he and his
bride went hand in hand into the _ch’ih_--the great marble-paved,
roofless courtyard, over-roofed and richly carpeted to-day, and greatly
decked and garnished for the nuptial rite of Sên Toon and the girl who
walked beside him, still blinded by her veil--walked guided by his
hand. He led her to the daïs, helped her up its few steps, and seated
her beside him on their throne.
On the marriage daïs the astrologer, who had chosen the propitious
bridal day, tied them together with red silk cords, ankle to ankle,
waist to waist more loosely. Together they drained a pair of jasper
wine cups also knotted together by cords of red. It was then that Sên
Ruben saw for an instant the bride’s face; she moved her veil a little
to find the rim of the cup her bridegroom held to her lips, and as she
did so the jeweled fringe of her crown, another dense veil in itself,
slipped aside, just for an instant, and Ruben saw! No one else did; Sên
Toon’s eyes were on the cup, careful not to spill the nuptial wine;
no one else stood where he could see. Not deformed, and the face of a
lady-one, yet Ruben Sên saw it disconcertingly plain. Not a face to
win a husband’s love, he thought. And he read her chin too firm, her
lips too thin and threateningly willful--an ugly, selfish face. It
repelled Sên Ruben, and his heart was sore for Sên Toon. Almost, had
it not been impossible so to affront a girl, Ruben could have snatched
the nuptial wine cups from Sên Toon’s hand and dashed them down. He had
thought, as he followed them through the _t’ings_ and _langs_, that the
girl’s gait was ungainly; but looking down at her red-shod feet, as she
sat on the daïs, he started at their loveliness; he had not seen tinier
feet in China. There were not golden lilies to match them in all the
courtyards of the Sêns. Sên Toon had that to his happiness!
When they left the daïs at long last, bride and groom bowed to each
other again and again and bowed low and often to their kindred--three
of hers, dozens of his--and their relatives bowed as often, not so low,
to them. Sên Toon led her to the ancestral tablets, and there they bent
repeatedly and worshiped. That done she was a Sên, no longer a Sia;
but she was not yet his wife. Out of the _ch’ih_, through the inner
garden and courtyard into her own room in the _kuei_, Sên Toon led the
girl, closed the panel closely, lifted the red veil from her face,
quietly laid his dagger on the veil where it had fallen, a gauzy cloud
of silken crimson, and they were man and wife--though their eyes had
not met; neither had looked at the other yet. The priests were praying
in the great ancestral temple, a gorgeously appareled motley crew of
priests, both Buddhist and Taoist. For the Sêns for centuries had
kept every road to Heaven open and well tended. If they took all the
religions of China somewhat lightly, they trod them all with decorum,
if mostly they walked them on hireling priestly feet.
For an hour the now wedded ones were left alone, then her bridesmaids
burst in upon them. And Sên Toon left the nuptial chamber. Until the
dark came, until the day broke red in the sky, her clamorous maids
sported about the new wife-one, joked about her, taunted her, did
their utmost to make her speak. She took no notice of them, spoke
not, scarcely moved. And rushing from the chamber when the gongs of
the house struck the Hour-of-the-Dragon, the troop of laughing girls
ran through the house, screaming out exultantly that she had neither
laughed nor cried, asked for food nor spoken. She would prove a model
wife; for she was not talkative, and she was not gluttonous and ne’er
would she ask for tea or rice. Not even mushrooms or melons would tempt
her until she had served her lord or heard that he had eaten in the
outer quarters.
All night long Sên Toon paced up and down alone in the orchard. No
one sought him. Sên Ruben wished to but dared not. Ruben pitied the
heavy droop of Sên Toon’s shoulders, the miserable drag of Sên Toon’s
feet. The heart of the white Sên rebelled against the proscribed and
arbitrary customs of Chinese marriage. Ruben Sên had found one sore
thing in China, and Sên Ruben felt it such.
Only those two cousins kept watch and wakefulness until the giggling
bridesmaids came trooping through the house with the daylight. One by
one the others sought their couches or sleep-mats. Sên Ruben saw Madame
Sên yawn long before her departure from the feast-hall licensed the
others to follow her; for when a great Chinese lady whose hairs are
white, and she rich in years, mingles at such sacred functions with
the men-ones she ranks above them all. But when Ruben saw her watching
Sên Toon’s unhappy pacing, as she turned away to the _kuei_, Sên Ruben
heard her chuckle.
When the sun was halfway up the bamboos, Sên Toon turned slowly towards
the house and went to his wife. And for several days Sên Ruben did not
catch sight or hear word of Sên Toon.